In this blog ...
* I want to teach someone who wants to learn to sew but has no one to show them how.
* I want to instill in someone the love of sewing
* I want to teach them to want to go that extra step to achieve a garment that is special and professional looking.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

The Making of a Trench

I made a trench coat for my DD as a Christmas gift. I posted it on Sew Passionista by Diana. I thought I'd give the construction details here.

I used M5525. The fabric is a fur backed denim and so I had to really think about how to achieve the look I wanted. It helped a lot to dig out my grandchildren's

crayons and to colour the pattern illustration.

And here's the finished coat.

First I decided that I wanted exposed seams along the princess lines of both front and back but the side and center back seams would be normalI new the lapels had to show the denim on the outside so I drew the roll line , cut along it, added a seam allowance to both the lapel and the front ..

When I sewed the two together, I realized the lapel was too scanty.

I had to recut it and this time I added another 5/8" to the lapel and that was much better. When I added the collar, I decided to leave out the collar band and that worked just fine.

Now about the exposed seams and as you've probably noticed the outside finish of the collar ,center front,hem , cuffs and belt.

First thing was to separate the denim from the fur on all edges. This was time consuming and hard for a woman who has sore thumbs but it was worth it.Then I trimmed away about 1/2" of the denim.

I then top stitched using a zigzag stitch 2.5 wide and 2.5 long. My awl really came in handy for this step.

For the hem and cuffs. I met with a problem at every seam that was sewn the regular way. These pictures show how I dealt with that.

I clipped,trimmed away the denim.

tacked down the fur to one side ,

then turned up the hem and top stitched in place

The pocket on this pattern are in seam. Here is how I managed the opening.The exposed fur was a challenge here!

The pockets on the inside. I used a piece of denim for the lining.

The side and center back seams were top stitched like this.

Since the belt ended up quite wide, instead of belt loops, I sewed it at center back like this.

As for buttonholes, I forgot to take pictures but I used a sort of bound buttonholes which left a bit to be desired.

And that's it.My daughter loves her trench and it fits her beautifully.

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Just For Beginners

I'm adding this new section under the titlePages (for New Sewers) just below. It's just for those people who don't already sew or who do but are not having good results. To access the topic just click on it and the page will appear. It isn't a post and you can't find it by scrolling down the various posts.

DIANA'S SIMPLE FITTING SOLUTIONSI want to emphasize that these fitting solutions are what works for me and what I share with my students. I don't claim to be an expert on this topic. I've gathered this information from various sources.